Given a Choice
by TempestinTime
Summary: The Universe needs the Doctor, but he needs someone too. The 12th Doctor is given a choice to change the universe. But a choice this big, it needs agreement. He can have her back, if he agrees to give up everything that has happened since she left, to forget everything and trust she will do it right, for their forever. He believes in her. 1st in my 'His Hearts Defender' series.


**AN:** I'm sorry for my unfinished fics, it's been a long few years, I'm older and changed and I hope you all like my new story. A prequel to the series I'm writing. It will have Rose relive her time with the Doctor. I know there are plenty of fics like this, but I love the idea, so I decided to try to do one too. I will include new adventures and people as well as old and love ones. The first chapter of the next story will be this event from Rose's perspective.

I greatly appreciate anyone who takes the time to review my work, I am always open to thoughts, ideas, constructive criticism and questions. Reviews are what give me confidence and delight.

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All exists in a cycle; this Universe is born and lives until Its time ends. When a Universes' time is up It dies, and Another is born, this is the ever-turning cycle of all things, from the smallest atom to the being that is the Universe. There are very few that area aware of the greater Universe, but the TARDIS is one. As Her direct children, TARDIS exist in all of time and space at once. In multiple dimensions and parallel universes within the Universe. When a TARDIS chose to anchor her soul in a single universe she gains the ability to communicate. Most of her soul is pulled to the chosen universe but She still exists in time and space. Such physical form allows a bond to be developed, should She choose a being to bond with. The Doctor's TARDIS was one of the first, her coral grown in one of the first hatcheries. In all Her time, only the Doctor had been one She had felt was worthy, one She consented to bond with.

There are other beings within the Universe that govern over elements of It, the Eternals, the Time Lords, the Guardians.

There was not much that registered to the Universe, but the destruction of one of these governing races was one such happenstance. There must always a certain balance, rules that must be followed for the stability of the Universe, if this stability is disturbed then the Universe risks ending before Her time. While the Time Lords were no longer able to influence the happenings within the Universe, the Doctor kept the balance well.

But he was at risk. He was reckless, hopeless and spinning out of control. The Universe watched the Doctor, watched as his pain drove him to make the wrong choices and risk the balance. The Universe watched as part of the Doctors soul was splintered, his hearts torn. In a parallel universe the balance was thrown asunder as elements were introduced that should never have been. As the parallel universe tried to right its self by purging the rouge element the Bad Wolf re-emerged.

This was the answer the Universe had sought, if she could restore his soul, the Doctor's hearts, then he would not crave peace so, he would not risk so much with recklessness and carelessness. Because his home, his peace, his reason to care and love fully would be always with him. The defender of his hearts.

The Universe and her Daughter gathered their strength and prepared for a change that would impact every living being.

He leaned against the console heavily, the burn he had been repressing for so long surged within him. He had said his goodbyes, seen his Impossible Girl again, gained forgiveness from Bill.

He wondered what would come next, another body that ached like this one did? Or another young body that had the energy to run like he was driven to do?

His thoughts shifted, to her. As they did every time he regenerated, the love of every life he had had since he met her.

As his mind began to burn, vulnerable and unshielded, it reached desperately for her golden presence. The one he hadn't felt since he had left her on that accursed beach oh so long ago.

Regeneration energy shot from him in every direction, igniting books around him, throwing flame like shadows on the walls of his beloved ship as lights burst around him. He could hear explosions around him and felt the sting of sparks from the console.

But still, instinctively and desperately, his mind reached out. Desperate for the comfort and love he had missed for so long. The sparking console in-front of him burst open and the searing light of the soul of the TARDIS filled the room, eclipsing everything.

Everything froze, like a suspension of time and space. His senses could find no information to decipher in this suspended moment. But he could hear her, his beloved ship, the only constant in his life. She sang to him.

The TARDIS sang of a choice, a chance. The possibility of having her back, if he can give up control and trust her. Then he felt it, that pink tinged golden presence, the one he had felt only in his dreams for over a millennium. Tiny and dim, the soft presence felt just like it had all that time ago, it pulsed with love and longing from across barriers he could never breach to reach her. His hearts seethed with pain, even suspended in this instant on non-time, his mind wailed with regret and desperation, he wanted nothing more than to have him back.

The TARDIS pushed at his mind again, she was giving him a choice. There was an opportunity for them still, they could have their forever. If he could agree.

The Doctor quirked a mental eyebrow, the universe was never this kind to him. He couldn't even be accorded a moments peace, why would it grant him his greatest wish? He heard her again, her song so loud and clear in his mind and song somehow becoming words like he hadn't heard from her since she had been trapped in a physical body.

 _Sacrifice_

Oh, of course. Of course, it was a sacrifice of some kind. But he couldn't, not even for her could he condemn both universes to crumble as they would if he tried to breach the walls to her universe.

 _Memories. Life. Time._

His memories? Some of his life? Did she want him to give up regeneration's to bring his precious girl home? The TARDIS pushed at his mind again, frustrated at his apparent slowness.

Well he was mid-regeneration, what did she expect?

She showed him a rewinding reel of his life over the last thousand years, Bill, Clara, his Ponds, River, Martha, Donna... All the adventures. All the pain. The playback came to a stop as a man in leather grabbed the hand of a frightened girl in a shop basement and uttered a single word.

'Run'

But her eyes, they were different than he remembered in that moment, when she looked up at him for the first time. Still tinged with innocence but that blended with a toughness that had not been there before, a weary hope and a spark of love.

 _A Wolf reborn. A soul sent back_.

A soul sent back? Was Rose's soul somehow in danger? Her soul was safe in the other universe, how could it come back? Apparently without her body if it was her older soul in her younger body, if someone had forced this on her he would destroy them. He would find them and raze their being to nothing.

 _Bad Wolf_

An image of glowing Rose and TARDIS flashed through his mind, girl and ship connected through the vortex, all of time and space running through them both.

Another image, one that finally shattered his scarred hearts.

Rose, laying in the street with blood pooling rapidly around her, flowing from the holes that dotted her front. Each ragged tear in her body spreading the red stain further. One hand reached out towards a man lying near her. The Metacrisis, the mistake so severe he had had to send him to another universe to protect the timelines. Screams echoed in the air around them, gunfire cracked off to the side. An explosion nearby rocked the ground and the pair shared a look, one that said everything they could not find breath for in that moment.

I'm sorry

I love you

Always

The light in their eyes faded and so did they. Dissolving into golden particles, they shimmered and faded away.

In that second of non-time the Doctor convulsed, agony blazing through him as golden dust seeped into his skin.

 _Your soul returned_

His soul? The soul of the Metacrisis had come from his own? Well, a tiny part of his mind mused, you can't make something out of nothing, basic thermodynamics that.

The TARDIS pushed fully into his mind, bringing with her the full force of the Time vortex. He was surrounded, every deep colour swirling around and through him, but it was streaked through with golden tendrils. Golden wisps that that reached out to him with a feeling of deep love and acceptance. Explaining to him what was truly being offered and what she was chosen to do.

 _She has made her choice my Thief. The Wolf has chosen you, chosen a road of hardship to return to you and fulfill a promise of forever._

Forever? Could he ever truly have forever with Rose? She was willing to relive the years they had, alone in her knowledge, trying to change their future for the better. But what did he need to do?

 _Trust her, Surrender_.

Give up his memories… His life… It made sense now.

If he was reversed, reverted to the person he was when he met her he was giving up all the experiences, the last one thousand years. He was sacrificing everything he had become and all the people he had known. He would have no say in how things went until after Canary Warf and the possibility of losing her had been passed safely. No memory of a time not yet passed, no choices. He would need to give all the control for their future to Rose. He, who was always the authority, he who knew what every person would do, what he could make or convince them to do. He, who never let anyone closer than necessary to ensure he retained control of any given situation any more, he would have to give that up. Had to surrender to Rose in a way he had never considered giving anyone. He needed to trust her to lead, he who had resisted direction from anyone else. He who had led his life with defiance and rebellion to those who would control or restrict him.

All he had become would be gone.

But was that such a bad thing? Despite all the good, the lives he had been a part of, he had been through so much pain as well. Alone on a level that his companions since Rose hadn't been able to fill.

As the Doctor considered the choice in-front of him a song come to his mind, a song from her time, one that described his life without her so perfectly.

 _You only need the light when it's burning low_

 _Only miss the sun when it starts to snow_

 _Only know you love her when you let her go_

He missed her so much, she had been the light in his life, and now his life was always shadowed. That much colder. He hadn't seen how much more illuminated she had made his life until she was gone.

 _Only know you've been high when you're feeling low_

 _Only hate the road when you're missing home_

 _Only know you love her when you let her go_

He really did only realize how happy he had been when it had become something he looked back on. She was his home too, when she was there was a joy in traveling that was lost when she was. When he had let her go.

 _Hoping one day you'll make a dream last_

 _But dreams come slow and they go so fast_

 _You see her when you close your eyes_

 _Maybe one day you'll understand why_

 _Everything you touch surely dies_

He dreamed of her on the rare occasion he slept deeply, dreams that were fleeting but joyous, and made him ache that much more when he woke up and she wasn't next to him as she had been in his dreams. And didn't it just sum up the curse that followed him, everything he touched died, faded into the dark and left him alone.

 _Staring at the ceiling in the dark_

 _Same old empty feeling in your heart_

 _Love comes slow and it goes so fast_

 _Well you see her when you fall asleep_

 _But never to touch and never to keep_

 _'Cause you loved her too much_

He had, he had loved her so much that he wanted to be able to ensure she had the best life possible, and a version of him was the only one he could be sure would love her like she deserved. He had waited 900 years to meet her and he had lost her barely a few years later, the blink of an eye in a life like his.

He realized he really would give anything to hold her again, to have her and a chance at their forever.

He trusted her, and believed in her above everything else, even after all this time. He loved her. He knew so much of what was woven into time, he would see so many of those he had lost again and for the first time. Maybe this time less would be lost, maybe they could save more.

He drew himself up, as much as he could in this odd timeless moment in the vortex and projected his decision.

 _I choose. I surrender._

At his announcement that was a moment of stillness in the vortex, as though the Universe herself had paused. Then there was only light. The searing white of the heart of the TARDIS as she pulled his soul into her own.

The Universe convulsed, seizing her Daughter and the Time Lord from their place in time and space and propelling them backwards, using the last of the residual energy from her birth, the Universe spread wide and gripped all that She was, pulling it back towards Her center. A millennium of time unraveled, reversed, contracted. All that existed were Her children and She did this for them giving a little of Her life, those dark years at the end cut short. As the changes of a thousand years were stripped away so to were the memories of the Doctor, the agony of grinding away the lives he had lived, the things he had felt that had shaped him, the remembrance of those he had loved and lost.

Finally, the torment gave way to numbness. The Universe ground to a shocking halt, paused again to settle from the tumultuous journey they had just undertaken. The heart of the TARDIS settled again into herself, having only really needed to flow back down her own line of self, still existing in all of time though the line leading to her future was now shrouded, waiting to be written by her Thief and Wolf.

The aged soldier stood in-front of her console. He was battered from decades of fighting a war he had never wanted, tired from being pressed from all sides by two powerful enemies, standing alone for the rest of creation, their only defender. But it was over now, and he had to forget, had to maintain the time lines until he would meet him-selves again. He tucked away all the memories of the last days, leaving only the pain of the loss of his people and the surety that it was his fault.

His wrecked and battle-weary body finally gave in and he stared at his hands as the regeneration fire began to burn. A loud clunk from the console prompted his still hair-trigger reactions and he jerked his arms up into a defensive position. The section in-front of him lifted and the brilliant heart of the TARDIS consumed his gaze. His own hearts hammered at the sight, what could have caused this reaction from his beautiful ship? As soul white and regeneration gold filled his vision he felt the TARDIS reach out to his mind. She sang to him of hope and love to come. He shook his head, there could be no happiness out there for him, he who had destroyed his own kind.

 _Sleep, my Thief, life and love will find you soon_.

Unable to resist the push from a mind so much greater than his own, the Doctor fell to the grating as consciousness slipped away from him.

The TARDIS released the energy of the Doctors soul back to him, though it was not too much different any more than that of the Time Lord laying on her floor, it was still strength and power he would need in the coming days.

The explosion of regeneration energy rocked the TARDIS, forcing its way over her walls, burning away decorative coverings and leaving her raw.

On the grating ice-blue eyes snapped open, filled with rage and pain. A new Doctor looked over his bruised time-ship and set his face into hard lines, he may have saved the universe but what was left for him now?

The Doctor heaved himself to his new feet, leaning on the console for balance as he adjusted to the changes to this new body had brought. He straitened, turned away and moved towards the halls, he needed sleep food and new clothes, in that order.

The TARDIS hummed in sadness at the pain of her Thief, but this was the road to healing. The adventure that would result in a life of happiness and love, of peace no matter the troubles of the universe and the path that would mend two souls and unite three hearts.


End file.
